STEAL from Everyone -- Cartoon Modern, 1950s Animation Is an Art Bible! 

Shortly after this book was released, I was working on Nickelodeon's Brainsurge gameshow, the majority of the animators that worked on it had this book on their desk to pull reference from. You can see the influence in what was called the LEVEL 2 games, not the quick animated bits, but the longer animated shorts.

I find these classically high modern designs to be utterly pleasant on the eye. thanks!

Fantastic episode. This book was on every shelf and desk in the early 2000s animation scene in New York. Flash was taking over as the cheap way to make cartoons and this kept us all inspired and hungry to make great animation with limited resources. It didnt start the trend, but it poured a lot of gas on the fire.

I'd love to see yall go over some Ralph baski work, especially Wizards. I know animation isn't exactly what you cover but that movie is full of such great rendering and visuals.

This unlocked some deep sense memories for me. I never realized how much I loved the shapeful lines and proportions from 50's illustrations. Now find me this plus off-registration halftones and I'll be complete.

Amid Amidi, I used to work for Spumco and I made friends with him. Gabe Swarr introduced me. What a great guy! Very influenced from John K.

Love the UPA stuff. Zagreb Film has a channel on here where they've uploaded a ton of old Czech animated shorts heavily influenced by the UPA style. It's interesting to see their take on it

What a surprise!!! Thank you for "changing the topic" once in a while. Beautiful book! Keep up the work, guys! You rock

Love this book. I can't tell you how many hours I spent with it. Never thought I would see a video on it. Thanks Guys.

That “UPA style” would make a comeback in the 90s and the 2000’s. I find it better than the Calarts and the Tumblr style.

Ooh! I have a copy of this on my bookshelf!

I'd love to see a comic done with that Japanese Animation style with the rough blue, red and graphite pencils. I think the blue and red are for designing shadow forms. It looks so cool.

Funny timing, I was showing this book to my young daughter just a couple of days ago, and she was buzzing with ideas after looking through it. So much of this art is timeless.

There are great examples of these types of design and animation in a video titled, "50s & 60's Classic TV Beer Commercials".

This book is absolutely fantastic, and you guys should definitely read "The Noble Approach: Maurice Noble and the Zen of Animation Design" by Tod Polson. Noble was the King of background layouts!

Beautiful breakdown of a fantastic book, thank you! For those interested the pink sheet @26:00 is an exposure sheet used by the camera person (now compositor). The letter before the number on the drawings indicates the layer order the drawings should be shot in, (Background being the bottom layer then A, B, C, etc.) The drawings on the colour paper are supplied by the Sequence Director, those same sheets are used to give the animator their revisions as well.

Fuck yea! Love it. The last bit was a cool add too. Thank you for sharing! I remember passing on the original prints of the book (poor and in college), but great it’s out there for free. That era of style was a huge influence on me at the time.

Man I remember looking at this book on the shelf in Tower Records, and it was on my Amazon watch list for a long time. Then it went out of print, so the price has been jacked up before the Kayfabe Effect even was a thing!

I love this book. There’s a bunch of John and Faith Hubley (UPA) animation on the Criterion Channel right now. Keep up the great work!

Great book. Great video. This is high on my list of "Books I wanted to buy but thought I could get cheaper on the after market".

Yeah, Ed, I was thinking @6:43 that to do those characters that balanced that the artist could easily draw the skeletons of those figures perfectly.

There was a period around 41-43 in which the layouts and brackgrounds of the Warner cartoons started this more abstract style. John McGrew for Chuck Jones and Dave Hilbermann for Frank Tashlin did them for about a year or two and really would be the start of this whole style in animation. Tex Avery also around this time started to simplify his drawings to remove the more disney-esque detail found in most cartoons of the time. In fact his Symphony in Slang was in production before Gerald McBoing Boing and had a much more styilized approach compared to everything else thanks to a layout artist Tom Oreb.

At least the proto-Barney Rubble got a good job selling pizza.

18:18 looks like the inspiration for Cleo from Clone High.

This really reminds me of Frank Espinozas' Rocketo. You guys should have a look.

To really access that one-line style, all you have to do is add some blind contours as a warmup exercise. Besides being a great way to put some shape language in your hand, the exercise itself naturally produces the kinds of exaggerations seen in 50's animation. Since I caught on it, it became my go-to recommendation whenever I see a beginner asking about how to make their lines better, cartoon from imagination, or learn how to use a graphics tablet(since it develops muscle memory independent from watching your hand). This might mean that the style's 1950's popularity ultimately derives from the popularity of Kimon Nicolaïdes' "The Natural Way to Draw", since it started to creep into design language in a big way not long after that book was published in 1941, and when you look at the book, at its heart it's basically only two things: contour and gesture. Nobody seems to actually be able to stick to the Nicolaïdes lesson plan, but they like the exercises.

Great video. Proof that if you see it get it. Use to see this book a lot and always intended to get it. I use to think this style of artwork was too loosely goosey for my tastes when I was a kid, but I’ve really grown to appreciate it over the years.

SOOO DOPE! Always on it gentleman!

Did Jim Flora’s art come before cartoon modern?

What an awesome video, guys. I so appreciate what you do. High point of my day.

Really enjoyed this one guys. Please do more like this.

I just watched a video about the Simpsons animation and style guide books, and Ive been thinking of picking them up. Sure theres great advice about character design.

Oh man, those loose anime frame pages are dope

Excellent video as ever, some stunning drawings in this book

that's an incredible book

Good luck finding this book at any sort of reasonable price! (It's great, though)

High school dxd thats crazy you got that

Never cared much for the primitive naivety approach, but I know why they had to back then, you’re welcome to it.

In fact, only one style and approach has been chosen for that book, and to my taste, the ugliest one.